


To Wish

by XrosaryX



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Gen, Musings of an Octoling, Set around the first game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 07:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14972612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XrosaryX/pseuds/XrosaryX
Summary: The musings of an Octoling and her secret wish.





	To Wish

**Author's Note:**

> So the Octo Expansion made me remember I had this old story. Originally from my ff.net account, I decided to put it up on here!
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! NADA, NICHT, ZIP!! I DO NOT OWN SPLATOON!!
> 
> Note: Some changes and edits. I wrote this around the time the first game was released. Pardon if there are some missed spelling or grammatical errors!!!

" _You were made to fight."_

_"Your only purpose is to fight."_

That had been what my mother said to my sisters and I when we begun to shift into our humanoid forms.

_"You are a warrior."_

* * *

Living underground was horrible.

The world around us was falling apart and it was a struggle to live without the need to always be armed. My mother could no longer walk onto the battle fields and was unfit to even work in the weapons factory. She had lost feeling in her legs and was forced to steer around in the metallic platforms our people created for the much lower ranked Octarians. The ones who couldn't walk without falling flat on their faces. Much weaker Octarians, my mother was not weak.

She still had the seaweed braided into her tentacles, the only symbol of pride for our family.

For her services to our people.

Proof that she was strong and never helpless.

_~~I sometimes flinched when she told me to keep my head up.~~ _

We could not say the same to our father who had died instantly for his carelessness. He had been patrolling upon a weak metal beam overlooking a chasm. He had forgotten to look where he had been going. From what we were told he missed a step and fell off the edge when he tried to catch himself.

We were told he had screamed for a long time as he fell....Until only his echo remained for a brief second followed by silence.

_~~I cried after we had all gone to bed after they told us.~~ _

He was always a clumsy octopus...It was a shame that he did not live long enough to at least see all of us grow up to take our place in our people's military.

My oldest sister had lost her left arm after her very first mission that required her and many others to search up above where those squids lived.

The Inklings were savages, having blasted ink on sight as soon as my sister and her squad emerged out of the sewers. Only three of them had made it back underground and my sister had been the lucky one to have only lost one of her limbs. She now spends her days as a training instructor with her missing arm forever a sign-or warning-to us all of the savage Inklings who reside above us.

~~Even now I see her shaking when she instructs the new recruits in target practice.~~

Another sister of mine could not handle the combat training all female Octarians were required to participate in. She failed and was forced to work in the factory as punishment for her sign of weakness.

We had no use to those who hesitated or stumbled in this war we were preparing for, so it was her own fault to have failed.

_~~She begged for another chance...~~ _

The weapon factories had been placed in the lowest sector of our home and I cannot remember a time she did not return home from her shifts with her head hanging in shame. Her once bright red tentacles becoming an ugly green from being exposed to the harsh work environment of our factories. The smell of our ink wasn't the most pleasant and our testing to make stronger ink sometimes harmed those who worked in the factories. Her beautiful tentacles once a vibrant red would forever now continue to slowly turn green until it would perhaps fall out. 

If she had only pulled the trigger and aimed at the target just right...She would still have her pride.

_~~She had been the prettiest out of the four of us.~~_

My sister older yet closest to me in age was sent out to a special sector far from our home. This sector was said to mimic a structure the Inklings were quite familiar with and would provide a battle ground that would even out our odds against them should they attempt to invade us. It has been rumored that the Octolings sent there never return and I fear that perhaps that very last hug she gave all of us was her only way to say farewell.

_~~I refused to sleep in my bed. I slept in hers for months until Mother told me to stop.~~ _

I am the youngest and was the very last to join. 

I was granted a simple patrol post in the end. Much similar to my late father's old job. I was to patrol around areas and keep an eye out for any stray Inklings.

~~_I didn't miss how Mother relaxed when my assigned post was announced. How my remaining two older sisters spoke in whispers of relief that I was "safe."_~~

Yet I cannot say I am not curious about those Inklings.

I blame my father for having given me this vast amount of curiosity for everything. He never was a soldier and was more of a scholar who would spend hours marveling about those above us instead of thinking of how to fire them with blobs and blobs of ink. We had no use of wondering about those squids and we had to focus on how to get the Zapfish from their grimy tentacles. 

It was our last hope for us...

Yet I was always thinking about them and the world they had banished us from many centuries ago. 

I remember the stories of the past, a time when we did actually get along with those vile Inklings from above. It had been some age of peace, but it had not been meant to be. They threw us underground, away from the light and the only way we could survive was to fight. To fight for our survival to live another day even as our home became engulfed in more darkness and the screams of dying Octarians echoed all day and night...

How could they live with the idea that they had banished us and left us to walk slowly towards our graves?

Surely they knew.

Yet even as I grew up with that hate we all had, I always wondered if perhaps...Maybe, just maybe we could find that peace again. To reach out to them and beg to coexist with each other like our ancestors those many years ago. However whenever I looked at my sister's missing arm, my other sister's decaying green hair and worried over my sister so far away...That stupid dream and wish of mine was too far gone.

My wish should have disappeared upon this realization yet it did not.

One day on one of my patrols I came across a piece of parchment that was shoved underneath a metal crate and my blasted curiosity got the best of me to take it. I will never know who stuffed that parchment there and wondered if one of the other officers who had been stationed at the higher sectors had drawn it.

It had been a drawing of some unknown place I have never came across in our history scrolls and during my lectures.

It depicted a large tower of some sort...That did not look aged or even breaking compared to our towers underground. All around were buildings that even with our technology we could never duplicate with our lessening materials. In each building sketched I could see and make out clothing that made me wish to discard my armor. Writings on these buildings' signs had things like 'Jelly Fresh' and 'Shrimp Kicks' written above each building to which I wondered just what sort of meaning these titles had.

However what got my attention the most in this crude drawing, was the color of blue.

Beyond the tower on this picture was the color blue in every space that was left empty by the artist. In this picture, blue was everywhere.

A sky.

A _real_ sky. 

The color was more beautiful than the sight of seaweed in ones hair that I almost cried when I first laid eyes on this piece of paper I had found out of luck. 

This was some world far beyond my own that did not see decay or darkness. A wonderful place I could never know as I was forever stationed in our last true home sector where darkness was our sky.

Every time I stare at this image...I close my eyes and try to find myself standing in front of this tower. To feel true light upon my skin and to hear instead the sounds of happy laughter and chatter. No more screaming, no more darkness...

This piece of paper is a dream I may never know. 

A fantasy that I, an Octoling, will never come to see as a reality.

* * *

  _"You are a warrior."_

_"Your only purpose is to fight."_

_"You were made to fight."_

Yet I continue to hold onto this small piece of a dream I may never see in my future.

To pray that maybe I will see this wonderful sky and never will be known as a warrior...

Just an Octoling...

**_"I'm not a warrior."_ **

**_"My only purpose isn't just to fight."_ **

**_"My wish will come true...."_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading!!
> 
> I know this story might be a little out of date with the new lore of the game, but all the same thank you for reading!


End file.
